


the rest of the world

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson and May are BFFs, Coulson is a pathetic lovesick fool, Defining the Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Everyone Finds Out, F/M, Grant Ward casts a long shadow, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Outsider, Painkillers, Secret Relationship, Serious Injuries, Skye's father - Freeform, Zombie/Alien OTP, one sided Fitz/Simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:18:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2035194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One by one the team sort of walks into it. Not everyone understands why Skye and Coulson have been keeping this secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rest of the world

**Author's Note:**

> I realize I've already written this fic, sort of. But that was before Ward's reveal so I wanted a Ward-less version of it. And it's my favourite trope, after all.

**one**

May discovers it first – and not precisely because she is his friend or because she can claim to know him better than anyone, because that's just not true anymore; some days she does, some days she doesn't know him at all, some days he has changed too much, and she has changed too little. Because she had thought Phil was something monolithic in her life, while everything else could go to hell – but that's not Phil anymore, and that's not her anymore, so she might as well start learning the new rules.

It's a matter of being there, right by his side, to look at his face and just know.

Anyone would have noticed, but she was the one there.

(She's always there; by his side, by her side, so in a way it makes sense that she is the first to know, for both of them – and she is sure that she is _the first_ to know, from the panicked look on Coulson's face)

Even if she didn't know him so well she would have known, just looking at his face on the field today, and a hundred tiny inconsistencies about his behavior the last couple of months (nothing bad, nothing alarming, just new and different and unexplainable until now) fall into place and paint a very clear picture for May.

They both watched Skye be pushed and go through the glass door of that cupboard like it was a film in slow motion and May herself was affected but when she turned to watch his face – even he caught himself making that face, and he definitely caught May staring at that expression, realization dawning on her, and Phil knowing within that split of second that _she knew_.

It makes everything seem less complicated, in a way.

And okay, she is worried now, it is something to be worried about, but at least this _explains things_.

It's a bit baffling to May that she hasn't noticed before. Some time ago she would have been angry at it, probably, at not being able to read him in something so important. They are different people now, and she can't begrudge him being this good at private, because she used her own skills on that area against him once, not so long ago.

Later – much, much later, seven stitches on Skye's arm later – she finds him in the living room, alone, pouring himself a generous glass of scotch.

She approaches carefully. Because she knows he is not the kind of man who would tell you outright if he wants to be alone – she would have to guess.

It doesn't look the case, tonight.

They've been holding off this conversation for some hours but he must have known it was coming.

He speaks first. In a friendly, casual manner than makes May wonder if this is his first drink of the night.

"Do you remember that night, twenty years ago, when we got recklessly drunk and promised we would never, ever the kind of best friends who talked about their sex lives? Because it was boring and predictable?"

May remembers.

It was a good pact. One they were proud of for many years to come.

He betrayed that promise once. A year and a half after Bahrain he tried to talk to her about her divorce.

She sits by his side, nodding, and Coulson gets the hint; he gets another glass for her.

"It was boring and predictable to listen to you whine about Agent Sullivan and compartimentalization," May comments.

"I was twenty-eight."

"You're not twenty-eight now," she tells him. "And boring and predictable is not how I would characterize this."

"Reckless," he offers immediately, alcohol starting to get to his voice. "And _stupid_ , so stupid. And morally questionable, probably."

"I'm her SO," she says.

She stares him down. There's a hint of pleasure in his eyes – May knows he likes when she stands up for Skye. It didn't occur to her that there was another reason why he'd like her to be protective like this. She has been very blind indeed. She should be angry but somehow she's not.

She stares him down some more.

Eventually she gets bored and stands up to replace the almost-finished bottle of scotch with a new one.

"I need to be a lot drunker for this," she announces.

"Yes, me too, that's how the promise not to talk about our love lives was born in the first place."

"So you're calling it love now."

Coulson rolls his eyes. And it is Coulson, and not Phil.

"I'm not calling it anything. We are not talking about this. Remember?"

May knows Skye, her stubborness, and suddenly a hundred tiny inconsistencies in _her_ behavior start making sense.

"She must be waiting for you right now," she points out.

She watches Phil make that guilty face of his that most of the time she's come to associate with their most junior agent.

"She is okay where she is," he says, harshly.

He finishes his drink quickly and pours himself another one.

"I have to say... The alcohol is much better now than twenty years ago," he tells her.

"I'll drink to that," May agrees.

This time he sips the drink slowly and quietly, his glance lost somewhere beyond the living room door. May is pretty sure where that glance is aimed at, in a way.

"I've trained her," she says, and Phil turns around, surprised by the shift in her voice. No longer skeptical or making a mockery out of this. "She's strong. You don't need to have a stroke every time she gets a scratch on the field."

"No. Believe me, I don't want to be that guy," he says, in self-recrimination. Even though he didn't really do anything inappropriate during the mission and making a face is not something you can control that easily. "I _can't_ be that guy. She wouldn't-"

"You're pathetic."

"I vividly remember you telling me that twenty years ago, too."

He smiles a bit. It's warm and unexpected. He's not pathetic, May thinks. He's just – very human. Which under the circumstances, both his and Skye's, is quite something. There's something admirable about it, how they are both exactly that stubborn and naive and May is not really surprised this has ended up happening between them.

She can understand his concern, though. SHIELD might be new but the world is old.

"You already know what everyone will say," she says, flatly, because he knows. He's always running factors and possibilities in his mind. She knows there's no objection she could have that he hasn't anticipated yet. It has always been the case, concerning Skye. "We've said that kind of stuff ourselves, about superiors who do _this_."

He shakes his head. His gaze goes from bewildered to sobered up.

"That doesn't really enter the equation. I'm sorry, but if she wants this I'm not going to worry about what anyone else might have to say about it."

"And that includes me," she points out.

"I guess that's what I've been trying to say, yes."

"Does that includes yourself?" May asks.

He smiles again. And again it's a genuine, if drunken, smile. He's been doing that lately, smiling like this. May should have noticed. She noticed it but she didn't make the connection.

"I feel this whole conversation is somewhat ironic on my part," he says.

May looks away.

It's not that Phil is being insesitive – but she hadn't expected the conversation to get to that point. He must have, though. That's how his brain works, that's the kind of connections he makes, and it's the weight of those connections what's making him doubt. And she is not hurt but – the truth is they haven't talked about it. That's how they do things, Phil and Melinda, this is the pattern they are comfortable with: they rarely talk about the important stuff. She wonders when that started being the case.

He notices the look on her face.

"I didn't mean to–"

"No. Ironic is a good word."

Irony is detatchment. She has been doing this through detatchment. And punching things. And teaching Skye how to punch things so that Skye won't have to worry about being hunted by monsters in human skin ever again. That part is important. 

"I'm sorry, May," he says. May knows this face of his. He's pathetically drunk and too earnest. "If I had stopped the thing with Ward as soon as I knew... I would have spared you a lot of pain. I wasn't being a good boss or a friend. I'm sorry I didn't order you to stop."

May snorts. "As if I would have listened."

"You should have listened."

"As if _you_ would listen, if I told you to break it up now."

"I wouldn't. But you're not my boss."

She rolls her eyes. 

"And you are not Ward."

"No," he repeats but there's something half-assed about his agreement. "But I don't need to be Ward to hurt her."

She sighs.

He's hitting bingo tonight and in all sincerity May is not in the mood of indulging his guilt anymore than necessary. She never is. That's why they work so well together. They don't have much patience for each other.

But then she thinks about Skye and the progression in their early morning sessions on the mats. She thinks about Skye and Skye she wants to help out.

"Don't worry. She didn't saw the stupid face you made on the field today."

"Well, she was too busy getting her arm sliced like that."

"You're a mess, Phil."

He nods emphatically and it's kind of endearing. "I'm getting that," he admits.

She takes the glass away from him. That's enough. Enough of everything, really.

She is reminded of earlier versions of themselves; younger and stupider, yes, but less concealed, less damaged in some ways. She's made peace with that but she is allowed to indulge in nostalgia from time to time. Like now. Because open and honest Phil is not a sight she sees very often (although, perhaps, slightly more as of late) and it takes her back to the times where she felt so superior and protective of him because at twenty eight he was such... well, such a mess. Like now. But not in a bad way. He had never been that.

"Do you need help?" she asks when he gets up to leave for his room.

"Please, Agent May."

He says that but then he stumbles and crashes against the bar.

They look at each other and they both chuckle.

It has been a rough day, and now May understands why when he finally leaves it's not in the direction of his own room.

 

**two**

He knows he doesn't have a meeting scheduled with the Director but this is too serious to wait, far too serious.

"What can I do for you, Agent Koenig?" he greets him in his office.

Cheerful. Far too cheerful.

He has been cheerful of late and Billy hates to be the one to put a damper on his mood.

But to have one of his agents operating in such a suspicious way... He has to know.

There's no use beating around the bush, either.

"Could you tell Agent Skye she is _very good_ at manufacturing camera logs but she forgot March 11th?"

Director Coulson raises an eyebrow, puts away the papers he has been examining.

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"Something very serious is what I'm talking about. A criminal offense. Skye's been destroying evidence. Look at this. Erasing footage from the security cameras and then doctoring the logs. Here, March 11th, Records Room. Twenty-nine minutes missing."

Coulson takes the tablet in his hand.

He takes a moment to go through the logs, carefully.

His eyes narrow and then soften. Billy can tell he has reached some kind of conclusion based on the evidence.

Then he starts laughing softly. It's a low sound but it fills the room instantly. Billy steps back from the man a bit, because he has never seen him like this. He looks like he's lost his mind.

Director Coulson is a weird person, he noticed right away. But this is new.

"Sir...?"

"March 11th? She's not – Skye is not destroying evidence," he tells Billy, an expressive gesture with his hands. "Well, she is. But it's nothing to worry about."

" _Nothing to worry about_? This is grave."

The Director shifts in his chair, pulling at his jacket to straighten it.

"Agent Koenig. _Billy_. Skye wasn't plotting high treason when she altered the logs, I assure you. She was trying to spare me this conversation with you."

"I don't understand."

Coulson looks away for a moment. He sighs before staring back at Koenig.

"What Agent Skye erased was footage of me having sex in the Records Room."

He doesn't get it. Is he joking? No, the Director would never wind him up like this. He likes puns but he's not a prankster. He wouldn't joke about something so important. But if that's true – that's really another matter completely, worse than high treason. In a way.

"Footage...? ...of you? Having sex...?" He pauses. Wait. Then... " _With_ Agent Skye?"

"Evidently," Coulson replies without missing a beat.

"Well, that's – even more serious."

The Director frowns.

"I think you've made your case for today," he says, politely but with an underlying energy.

"This goes against... Do you want to know how many rules?"

"Not particularly," Coulson says. Billy can't believe he's being... yes, that's the word, the Director is being _flippant_ about this. "And those are old rules anyway. We are making our own rules as we go. That was the deal. SHIELD our way or no SHIELD at all."

He says that but he _has_ to see how wrong the whole situation is. It's not just rules, it's common sense. Propriety. Billy takes a moment. He adjusts the knot of his tie. Maybe he is not sounding appropriately concerned about this. Maybe he is not sounding appropriately _official_.

"Director Coulson–"

He gets interrupted.

"I'm sorry, Agent. I'm going to have to pull rank on you here and order you not to pass this knowledge on to the rest of the team."

"That's," Billy looks for the right word. "Tyrannical."

"Well. I personally think it's tyrannical to police people's feelings in the name of teamwork. So here we are."

"This is an official matter."

"No, it's not official. Not yet. It's new. We are still ironing out the kinks," he pauses. "I can't believe I made that pun and Skye is not here to hear it."

"Director... are you drunk?"

That might be an explanation. But then he must have been drunk for quite a while, weeks even.

"Agent Koenig," he says gently. "This meeting is over. _Officially_ , if you want."

"But–"

"I'm sorry about the misunderstanding regarding the security footage. I promise that we'll try to keep to our private quarters from now on."

"That doesn't sound very comforting!"

Coulson's smile widens, but it also relaxes.

"No, I guess it doesn't."

 

**three**

Trip kind of walks into it.

He shouldn't be surprised (he _particularly_ shouldn't be surprised) but he has other things on his mind. The whole thing has a surreal air, like he just walked into a blurry part in a dream, because he is so tired.

He has been up all night with Simmons, comforting her, helping her get through the pain when the drugs stopped working.

Now it's too late or too early and with everybody most certainly locked in their rooms licking their wounds after the previous day's events Trip had imagined he'd be alone in wandering the Playground, he'd be alone in the kitchen.

He just wanted to get Simmons some orange juice.

(he can't do much for her tonight, except _be there_ , but at least he can do this)

By the time he steps into the scene it's too late to back down and even though it takes the other two people a moment to realize he is in the room with them Trip doesn't have a chance to turn back and pretend he never saw.

It takes the other two people a moment to realize he is here and Trip can take in the picture in front of him in that whole second.

Skye is not crying, but Trip can see her eyes are red.

Director Coulson is sitting very close to her, next to the kitchen counter, so close he has one leg between Skye's knees. He has one of her arms in a grip, caressing her forearm with his thumb. His other hand is holding Skye's face, caressing her cheek as well. He's whispering something and Skye is nodding or trying to nod, grabbing his wrist to keep his hand there. Their faces are very close together so Trip can't hear what's being said. There's something incredibly solemn about the image – the kind of scene you'd find in a funeral.

(nobody died and everyone will eventually be fine but Trip gets it; yesterday was a funeral of sorts – he saw a part of Skye disappear forever as she watched her father attack the rest of the team; a version of Skye is never coming back, she's mourning herself)

It doesn't take someone as smart as Trip to realize what is going on and the thing that surprises him is walking into this weirdly intimate moment between two people he normally associates with private and aloof. He is not surprised because of what it means. He is okay with what it means. Trip has never put that much weight in the non-fraternization rule (obviously) and though he understands superior-subordinate relationships are a bit more complicated than him and Simmons dating the truth is that Coulson and Skye are already as close as two people can be, Trip can't see how this is going to affect things while on missions.

What is obvious is that they had no intention of telling the team yet and they both flash Trip a look of alarm when he clears his throat to announce his presence.

Coulson pulls away as soon as he realizes Trip is in the room, putting some distance between him and Skye as if that gesture could make Trip _unsee_ what was going on. But Skye pulls him back, pulls him closer to her again, covering his hand with hers over the counter, anchoring him. Coulson tenses up for a moment, Trip can see his shoulders going stiff and then dropping as he accepts Skye's decision not to pretend.

"Good morning, Trip," Skye greets him after a moment, like she has somehow forgotten they are supposed to say something. And Trip has forgotten too.

They both take a look at the wall clock. Not sure if it qualifies as morning, both of them seem to be thinking. Coulson has his face turned away, pretending he's not even here.

Skye tries hard with the almost-cheerful tone, but there's a weight to it. Something new, and Trip can't stop replaying the events of yesterday in his mind. He can't stop picturing Skye's face when they found Simmons in the lab, and when that monster went after Agent May.

He wants to walk up to Skye and tell her that they are all okay after all and they will be okay, but he's not sure. Part of him is irrationally angry at Skye for what happened to Jemma – that monster would have never come after them if Skye wasn't here, if Skye didn't have the same blood running through her veins. It's unfair and Trip doesn't _really_ blame Skye for it, he just has his own priorities tonight; he knows her well enough to realize she must be blaming herself more than he ever could. And Simmons would be angry at him for even thinking it. Seeing Skye right now, looking small and defeated, and looking like she needs Coulson's touch or she'll slip off her chair, Trip doesn't feel anger or the desire to blame anyone. He feels protective.

He goes to the fridge. "Simmons wanted some juice. With ice."

The other two lift their head at the mention.

"How is she feeling?" Coulson asks and Trip gets the feeling he does it before Skye can. There's nothing boss-like about his tone of voice.

Trip takes a page off Skye's book and tries the almost-cheerful fake tone. "All those painkillers are making our conversations really interesting. She's fine."

"Tell her I'll go see her in a bit," Skye tells him. 

There's urgency in her voice, like it's really important that he tells Simmons that. "I'll tell her."

Skye nods at him; Trip can see her free hand darting up Coulson's arm and twisting into the fabric of his SHIELD issue t-shirt.

He has got what he came for, armed with the entire bottle of juice and a glass full of ice. Trip is thinking about leaving it here, but he can't do that. She's his teammate.

"Are you okay?" he asks Skye, gently, looking her in the eye.

From the corner of his eye he can see Coulson pursing his lips into a sort of appreciative smile directed at Trip. 

Trip thinks this is the weirdest bit of an already weird situation; seeing Coulson, in casual clothes and visibly affected by the previous day's disaster, and the way he is not in control of the situation, the way he has dropped the Director of SHIELD identity for the time being until he seems unrecognizable to Trip, a man he doesn't know but has inferred before, the way he stands next to Skye and tries to be mostly part of the background in the conversation because Skye needed Trip to ask if she is okay and Coulson looks so hopelessly grateful that he has.

It takes Skye a bit but she finally says, "I'm okay. Thanks. I'll see you in a bit."

And he really thinks he should really leave it here but he doesn't want any misunderstanding.

Trip gestures towards the two of them, but specially towards their hands still entwined over the kitchen table.

"What do you want me to do about this?"

Coulson turns to look at Skye, raises both his eyebrows and gives her an unmistakeable _your call_ look.

A little telepathic conversation seems to be going between them as they decide. 

Trip stays there, waiting, with his juice and his ice.

Coulson nods at Skye.

She turns to Trip.

"If you could keep it to yourself for now, that'd be great."

She's serious but her voice is lighter and warmer now, a little less hopeless than before.

Trip grins at the both of them but he is completely serious when he says. "Not a problem."

He can hear Coulson pulling his chair closer to Skye's again as he walks out of the kitchen.

 

**four**

Simmons discovers out of necessity.

She can't help thinking they are alone, the three of them, and now it's only her and Skye making the calls and she needs the team to be here. (She needs Trip to be here)

Low risk mission and stray bullets, that has always been Simmons' greatest fear, the one recurring nightmare.

More than monsters, more than HYDRA agents, this is what she dreads: _it wasn't supposed to be a dangerous mission_. May's and Trip's mission was supposed to be the tough one, that's why Skye and her (and Coulson) are here, fifteen hundred miles away from real danger.

And yet.

They drive into the hospital quickly, almost unconsciously.

SHIELD is not a recognized organization anymore, they have to do this through the proper channels. The police gets tipped off when they arrive but Simmons remembers it's all right, Director Coulson had already spoken with the local authorities before the mission.

There weren't supposed to be guys with guns inside that building.

This wasn't supposed to – 

This mission wasn't supposed to be a lot of things and her boss isn't suppossed to be lying on a gurney with three holes on his chest. Now Skye and the doctor are having an argument and Simmons doesn't quite know what's going on. The only thing she knows if they have to get Coulson inside the O.R. as soon as possible or else.

Or else.

 _Or else_ is her least favourite construction in the English language, Simmons decides right now.

The doctor is talking to them.

"With this kind of surgery there's always a risk –"

"Do it," Skye tells him.

" –and we need to get the proper authorization."

"I am his physician," Simmons says.

The doctor tilts his head, like he doesn't consider that quite enough. "We need someone who can legally make the calls here."

Simmons hesitates.

"I can legally make the decisions," Skye says. "I can do that. Let me do that. _Now_."

Simmons turns to her. It's not Skye's fault, but she's not sure her friend understands what being legally responsible for medical decisions means, no matter how much Skye cares about their boss.

"Skye?"

"No, give me the papers to sign, come on."

"Skye... What are you talking about?"

Skye is still looking at the doctor and only at the doctor, her body filled with tension about to explode. They are wasting time and Simmons cannot understand what is going on exactly or why Skye is saying these things.

"I'm the authorized party. I'm his – I'm Mr Coulson's partner."

"Partner?"

Skye does this thing with her eyebrows that Simmons knows means she's lost her patience.

"Yes, as in legal partner," Skye is basically barking in the face of the surgeon. "As in _legally_ authorized to authorize stuff. So get me those forms to sign already so you can start treating him and maybe not let him die? Can we do that?"

Simmons is too stunned to react at first. And too worried about Coulson to make it a priority. For a bit.

The doctor does as instructed and they are both led to the waiting room. 

They take turns going to the bathroom to clean up a bit. Their hands at least. They'll have to ask the team to bring a change of clothes when they arrive. _When_ they arrive. She feels calmer thinking about the little particulars like that. A change of clothes. Instead of how much blood was spilled over her clothes, Skye's clothes. Simmons guesses they'll be here in this waiting room _hours_. Skye lets herself fall on the couch, throws her laptop bag to one side.

And well, Simmons doesn't exactly want to press, but this is kind of important. She is not nosy but she doesn't think she can sit here hours and hours without bringing it up.

"Skye?"

"What?"

"You are authorized to make medical decisions," she says, she sounds as stunned as she feels. "What does that mean? Are you married now?! To _Coulson_?"

Even the words sound ridiculous to her.

"No, of course not. _Ma_ – Are you crazy? I mean – I don't. It's just. It means what it means. Okay?"

Simmons' eyes widen nevertheless. That didn't sound like a negative.

"Not okay," she says.

"It's kind of – like this insurance thing we have. He didn't want me to be left with – because I have nothing, really, and if something were to ever happened... Coulson wanted me to be protected."

She is not making much sense but Simmons gets the subtext. Skye and Director Coulson.

"How could you not tell anyone?"

Skye shrugs, obviously too worried about the other thing to care too much. "I don't know. We're really private people?"

"No. This is not being really private, Skye, this is being really exaggerated."

Skye looks tired when she nods. Simmons starts feeling bad about the tone she's just used.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," she says, softer now.

Skye shifts in her seat, uncomfortable.

"I didn't mean to hide it from you," she says. "It's complicated. It wasn't safe."

"Because of his condition," Simmons offers. She's the one who's had to deal with the aftereffects of the GH-325 on Coulson. He seems stabilized now, in part thanks to Simmons' intervention, but she understands why Skye might be worried about it. A moot point, since now Coulson has three bullets in his body and Simmons is not sure what his odds are against something as mundane.

"Yeah, in a way. And because of mine," Skye says. "As long as my father is out there none of you are safe, specially not Coulson. This is not something we..."

Skye drifts off, suddenly distracted by something on the floor.

"Skye..."

When she looks back at her Simmons can see the desperation in her face.

"I know I _should_ have told you but... Can we do this later? Please. When we know if he's even going to live?"

Skye looks too small, sitting in the dark green couch, pleading with her. There's something disturbing about it and suddenly Simmons remembers what she had looked like, when it was Skye on the operating table, incomprehensibly tiny and breakable, and she looks exactly like that now, again, and Simmons understands something very essential inside this moment, these superimposed images of Skye, even if she can't put it into words or how it connects to Coulson, just that it does.

She tries to smile at Skye, standing up. "I'll get us something to – a coffee?"

Skye widens her eyes, lighting up with gratitude at her offer. It stays there, that light, despite the circumstances. Her voice is full of it, that kind light, when she says: "I think I prefer a tea right now."

Simmons takes the chance while getting them drinks (and something to eat) to call the team, make small, ordinary arrengements that won't help, check for the hundreth time that Director Coulson's medical file is up to date and uploaded to the hospital's system. Trip and May are on their way but it'll probably be hours until they get here. Trip sounds okay on the phone but Trip always sounds okay. It'll probably be hours until Coulson comes out of the O.R.

Skye is the field agent here (and she got both her and Coulson out of there, after all) and it occurs to Simmons that she might be making these calls. But it also occurs to her (given the circusmtances, circumstances she had no idea existed until half an hour ago) that Skye might be glad to be unloaded of some of that responsibility.

When she comes back Skye is still sitting in the same position, and has gone back to staring at the floor.

Her voice is muted when she thanks Simmons for the cup of tea.

Simmons takes a sit at the other edge of the couch. She doesn't know if Skye needs space or not. She doesn't want to make a mistake. She feels childish, in the presence of something too adult and complicated. She has no idea how to react in this situation. She has not prepared for something like this. For one she had enough of Coulson's unpredictable state of health without having to worry about mercenaries shooting at them all. And well, medical emergencies she _can_ deal with, she has the tools. Sitting in this waiting room and watching Skye be _like this_ \- it feels like something beyond her expertise, as a teammate and as a friend (how much of a friend is she, though, that Skye didn't tell her; how much of a friend is she, though, that she _didn't notice_ ).

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm having trouble wrapping my head around all this."

"It's okay. You have every right to be pissed off."

"I'm not pissed off."

But she wonders if that's really true.

"I guess it was easy to keep putting it off," Skye confesses. "You guys did nothing wrong. We just didn't want to–"

She shakes her head but doesn't continue.

Simmons doesn't expect her to.

"How long–?"

"Quite a bit, actually," Skye replies vaguely.

Well, it'd had to be, Simmons reflects. She wonders. They've been rebuilding SHIELD for about a year now. She doesn't think it could have been before. She knows this is the last thing she should be fixating on right now, but it's not just natural curiosity – thinking about this is easier than thinking about everything else, easier than relying on her education to realize that even if Coulson makes it out of surgery (and it's a big _if_ ) he would probably have to deal with the consequences of such wounds the rest of his life.

Skye doesn't speak for a long time after that.

Simmons looks at her clasping her hands together, fingernails digging into her own palm, jaw set and not looking at anything. She wonders how she herself would react if something were to happen to Trip – but it feels weird, trying to make that connection. It's a completely different animal, right? She can't think about Director Coulson in those terms. It would be like thinking about her own father – well, obviously Skye has a different take on the matter.

"There's a storage unit," Simmons hears her whisper.

"What?"

Skye doesn't really look at her when she speaks:

"I have a key. There's a storage unit somewhere in Washington. Unregistered, not even SHIELD had the details. That's where he keeps the family stuff, the stuff from the life before. His father's old uniform. His mother's records. Toys, books, photo albums, old Captain America comics I can guess, he wouldn't say. The stupid trophies he won playing basketball when he was fourteen. That kind of silly, ordinary, tiny stuff. He gave me a key and told me to take care of it, if something ever happened to him. We had a row about it, of course. Spent the whole day angry at him. Stupid key. How could he do that to me? But I understood, I got it. Why he asked me." She makes a pause, lifts her head. "Simmons, I can't lose him. He's my family."

Simmons slides along the couch to sit close to Skye, running one hand up and down her friend's back, finally understanding what Skye needs from her right now.

She doesn't think they speak again until the surgeon comes to tell them the operation went well.

 

**five**

Well, she did tell him to come get her when the exploit finished its task, so she could go and set things up for the next level of security.

 _She_ told him.

She can't complain now, she did tell him any hour, even if she had gone to bed already. Seriously, wake me up, those were her exact words. And no doubt, because their task right now is kind of important.

Fitz does feel bad about it, as he walks down the hallway to her quarters. He feels bad about waking her up – rest hasn't come so easily for any of them in the last three weeks. They are all still reeling from Coulson's brush with death.

In fact he wouldn't wake her up at all, if he thought he could do this on his own – he thinks he _might_ probably be able to (he has been studying Skye's skills with software as much as she has been learning from his hardware; okay, that sounds dirty but it's not) but he is not 100% so he'd rather leave it to the experts. The sleepy experts.

There are a lot of things he can do for himself now (and it is important that he can do them for himself, that he can do even more than _before_ , even if it's not the same) but this is Skye's area of expertise.

He regrets knocking at her door quite soon, though.

He thinks he hears some whispering while he waits for Skye to come to the door.

He can tell, immediately, that there's someone else inside her room, even if Skye is blocking the view when she opens the door.

At a glance he can see that her room is full of stuff – Skye is always like that, her place is not messy, just cluttered. But _definitely_ someone other than Skye is here, there's a presence among all the stuff she's been collecting. Fitz's mind doesn't even get to run the plausibility of every variable because as soon as his eyes adjust to the darkness he can clearly see that the figure sitting up on Skye's bed is Coulson.

Is Coulson.

Oh, okay.

That wasn't one of the possibilities his mind was going to contemplate, that's for sure.

Fitz's mind shuts off, starts thinking about something else, like this is normal. Completely normal. Nightmare level kind of normal.

Skye should remember _she_ was the one who asked him to come pick her up in her room. She is the one who should have been more careful. He can't be blamed. He hasn't done anything.

Skye narrows her eyes at him. 

He hasn't spoken yet.

"You told me to come get you when..." he starts, gesturing with his hand.

"It finished?" she looks excited about the work and completely unconcerned about... the other thing.

"... yeah."

"That's soon." She smirks: "I must be even better than I thought."

Skye can see him trying to peek inside the room, over her shoulder, at the bizarre and alarming image of the Director of SHIELD sitting among the bedclothes. _Bed_... Fitz's mind shuts off further, until there's only white noise, maybe a song. 

But not enough that he can't process the image, after all.

Coulson still looks quite worn out – to be expected, he hasn't recovered from his injuries just yet and the team is trying to get him to take it easy. This is taking it too easy! Fitz thinks. He understands Coulson has to rest. He didn't need to rest in Skye's bed!

"Come on, let's go," Skye grabs his arm and takes a sweater with her and Fitz can swear there's amusement in her voice as she drags him away from her room. From her _bed_ room. Away from Director Coulson.

In the lab he just watches her work at first, not saying anything.

She looks normal, like this is normal. She looks focused on the work. Fitz is in no way or form going to bring it up, what he just saw. What he just _saw_. He's going to forget all about it and maybe if they don't mention it it won't be true.

"Fitz..." She's looking at him from the corner of her eye, typing with her usual out-of-this-world speed. "Are you okay?"

He panics.

"Yes! I mean. Why wouldn't I be –? Who cares if you and the Di–? I didn't see anything, I swear."

"It's okay."

"I won't say anything, I promise. I just wanted to finish the job and – and you told me to come and get you and..."

"Relax, Fitz, it's fine." She sounds like it really is, fine. Fitz wonders if it's a trap. Or a joke. Is this a joke? "I think everybody knows, anyway."

"Is this a prank?" Fitz asks. He hates the idea of being pranked like this but at least it would explain things. "Did Jemma put you up to this?"

"No," Skye replies, still focusing on the laptop screen. "It's real. Way real."

She gives herself a little self-deprecating chuckle.

Fitz believes her. Mostly.

" _Every_ body knows?"

Skye shrugs. "Sorry."

The idea that Trip and Simmons knew and didn't tell him is a bit disconcerting, that is true.

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long has everybody known?"

"Not long, I swear. It's not like we were excluding you."

Good, Fitz thinks, because he has been excluded of enough stuff already – it's not the team's fault, of course, that for some time he hasn't been really useful, but still, he gets very itchy about being left behind.

"I'm sorry," Skye says, and it sounds like she means it, but it's light. "We are not good at talking about this stuff."

Fitz snorts. "You? Are not good at talking? About stuff?"

"Not about this, no."

"Well, uh."

Skye finally stops typing and turns to look at his face.

"It's not that we don't trust you guys. But there's a lot of stuff going on right now and we thought it might be insensitive."

"Insensitive."

"Yes. Or maybe bad luck, in a way." She looks down. "We've got enough of that. Lately. Very much lately."

And hey, Fitz can understand that. It's only been a few weeks since Director Coulson got shot. And well, he is not completely immature, even though his thing with Simmons didn't go anywhere, he gets that relationships are complicated, even without one of them being the bloody Director of SHIELD, even without one of them being an old man. Fitz loves Coulson, but that doesn't really change the fact that he's really, really old. He understands Skye, though, the fear.

"You didn't want to jinx it," he says.

"We were scared."

Yes, he definitely understands that part. Skye is an 084 and that's like living in fear of something happening, permanently. There's the stuff with her father, which Fitz doesn't consider himself equipped to even mention. As for Coulson – Simmons tried explaining what was going on with him and she is midly optimistic about it _now_. It's funny how all of them knew about Coulson having been brought back from the dead but none of them imagined there could be serious repercussions. Well, Agent May did, that's obvious, but only because those were her orders, it wasn't something that felt real until bad stuff started happening to Coulson.

"You sure you are okay about this?" Skye asks again.

It feels good that his opinion might have some relevance here. He's not stupid – he knows Skye is not asking for his personal feelings on the matter (though he knows she values them, but he also knows that Skye is... well, _Skye_ ), she's asking if he has any trouble with handling this situation in the workplace. Protocols are important, Fitz thinks. Rules are important because rules are guidelines and all his life he has relied on guidelines. But ever since he joined this team Fitz has also learned that _all his life_ might no longer apply. This is another life. As Coulson said when they started new SHIELD, they make their own rules. Fitz wonders if he was already thinking about this. But Skye is his friend and Director Coulson is – it's an incomprehensible situation. He is still half convinced it's a practical joke.

"I guess," he tells Skye, in all honesty. "Are you... are you happy?"

Skye shrugs again, more animated now. "I am. I think. It's hard to know. It's not like we have a chance at being normal. I'm sort of an alien and he's kind of a zombie, if you think about it, and under those circumstances–"

" _He's the Director_." Fitz half whispers the words, like it's a state secret and he's going to be court-martialed, and Skye as well, but he also half-yells the words like he doesn't know what the bloody hell Skye is thinking.

"I know," Skye says, and then she smirks. "But you know me, I've never been good at following orders."

Indeed, he thinks, but this is an exaggeration.

Fitz smiles and that's it, they arrive at an agreement.

If she is okay with it he doesn't see how it could be a bad thing.

But he's not that noble and he laments that even Director Coulson has better luck with women than him. 

He doesn't tell Skye this.

It seems like the subject is closed for now.

They've been at the task at hand for half an hour, working in companionable silence.

Fitz doesn't expect to see any more of the Director tonight – in fact he's counting on avoiding him altogether for the forseeable future. For the next month, at least. He would be way too embarrassed to even look at him.

But Coulson obviously has other plans because he walks, unannounced, into the lab, still in his pajama bottoms and t-shirt and holding two cups of hot coffee. Smells good. Coulson gives Fitz a friendly look as he approaches.

Skye notices his presence when he walks behind her, her back turned.

She tilts her head at him, raising one severe eyebrow.

"I told you to stay in the room. Didn't I?"

Fitz studies Coulson's expression. It's almost bashful. This is the most bizarre night ever.

"I imagined you both could use some coffee," Coulson says. There's something strange in his voice, Fitz notices. He sounds a bit out of it.

Skye takes the mugs from his hands.

"You didn't have to. Literally you _shouldn't_ have."

"Are you catching the bad guys?" he asks her and Fitz, ignoring the protest.

Fitz nods dumbly at the question but Skye can only shrug. It's going to take a while yet.

"Yeah. I only have like a million lines of code to go through before I crack their system but sure. Here we are. Catching the bad guys. So glamourous."

"Take your time," Coulson tells her.

"Hence the coffee."

" _Hence the coffee_."

He leans over and places one kiss Skye on the side of her head. It's kind of sweet and Fitz looks away a moment too late. He didn't mean to, he swears.

Skye chuckles and pushes the Director away with one hand flattened against his chest.

"The painkillers still working their magic. Uh?"

Coulson frowns, a half-smile on his face. "Mmm?"

"You do realize you just kissed my hair in front of Fitz. Right?"

"It's really nice hair," Coulson replies. "Plus. Director's prerogative. Right, Fitz?"

Fitz panics.

"Yea – Definitely. Sir."

Skye runs one hand up and down Coulson's arm.

"You're not gonna remember any of this tomorrow. Are you?"

"Nope," Coulson replies, sounding very pleased about it.

"Okay then. Thanks for the coffee. But. Now get back to bed and let us work."

Coulson nods and does as instructed, again giving Fitz a friendly look before turning around and walking out of there. Before Fitz had thought that friendly look meant he was going to get fired for being indiscrete or something. Now he knows it's just the medication.

Skye waits until he's out of earshot.

She turns to Fitz with wide eyes.

"Fitz, you need to remind him of this tomorrow. He's going to be so embarrassed, it's going to be epic."

"I don't think that's – hey! I don't want to be court-martialed, thank you very much."

"Oh, come on, Fitz. Live a little."

"Well, very nice but – no, some of us are still processing the fact that you've been keeping secrets from the team. Again."

Skye's voice loses that playfulness. "Look, we were actually thinking about telling everybody soon. We had decided to have it all in the open. But then he got shot and – it became very complicated."

"But he's all right now. Isn't he?" Fitz was a bit troubled by the sight of his boss under the influence of drugs like this. He knows himself what kind of medicine makes you act that way.

"Yes. I mean, he's better. There's still work to do. You know better than anyone that sometimes there's no such thing as a full recovery." She pauses. Fitz looks down at his right hand instinctively, feels the numbness when he tries to flex his fingers and they won't obey all the way. Better than anyone, yeah, Skye is right. "But you go on. And he is Coulson, he'll come out on top. I'll make sure of that."

"He looks good, though," Fitz says and Skye smiles brightly at her.

"He's happy."

But right now Skye is the one who looks happy.

Fitz can't even be jealous of Coulson's luck with women anymore.

"So..."

"More questions?"

"Definitely," he tells her. "The situation requires thorough questioning."

Skye laughs.

"What do I call it?" he asks.

"What do you mean, what do you call it?"

"Is he – is Coulson your boyfriend now?" He feels like he's fourteen, asking this. In a good, fun way.

Skye makes a grimace.

"Ew, no. Don't ever use that word."

"But it must be something, you have to call it something."

She thinks about it for a bit. Fitz watches her grin to herself for a second.

"He's my guy," she tells him. "He's my person."

Fitz nods. He gets that. If anyone can get that, it's Fitz. He can say this without regret or bitterness now, but he knows exactly what that means. He feels kind of happy for Skye, because it seems like she's Coulson's person, too – he doesn't want to think about the specifics (ugh, no, he is still trying to brain-bleach the idea of Coulson inside her bedroom out of his mind) but that has always been the case. If there's one thing the team has always known is that.

Skye sees his pensive face and apparently mistakes it for worry.

"It's okay, Fitz," she says. "No one is going to get court-martialed here. Coulson would have to court-martial _himself_ first and as long as we do our jobs that's not happening. I'm planning on doing my job. Catching the bad guys. You?"

He smiles at her.

" _Definitely_."


End file.
